


Sleep, Don't Dream

by Moorishflower



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-19
Updated: 2010-08-19
Packaged: 2017-10-11 04:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/108205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moorishflower/pseuds/Moorishflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just because you're suddenly human doesn't mean you also suddenly know how to <em>be</em> human. When Castiel Falls, he has trouble adjusting. For the prompt 'insomnia'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleep, Don't Dream

  
Castiel Falls on the first of March, 2010.

As long and difficult to bear as the process of Falling is, the finality of it when it actually _does_ happen is a thousand times worse. Dean is there when Castiel loses his wings. He is, in fact, the only one _allowed_ to be there. Castiel glares at Sam and Bobby until they leave the panic room, but, when Dean kneels down to rest a hand against Castiel's shoulder, the angel doesn't shove him away. Doesn't move at all, really.

"This cot is uncomfortable," Castiel murmurs, breaking the silence. "I never noticed before."

"Welcome to being human," Dean says. When he pulls his hand back, his palm – and the shoulder of Castiel's trench coat – is soaked in blood. Castiel doesn't seem to notice at first.

"You're bleeding," Dean says, more than slightly alarmed. Castiel looks up at him, his expression hollow.

"Not in any way you would understand."

And it doesn't get better. The first four hours are full of blood and pain, and wounds that Dean can't even tend to because they aren't _there_. Whatever is happening to Castiel's wings, it's happening in some totally other place, a place that Dean can't reach. All he can do is sit on the cot with Cas, holding the angel's head in his lap while blood that shouldn't be there soaks through the sheets and Dean's pants.

"It is like dying," Castiel says hoarsely, once the worst of it is over. "It _is_ dying. How do you stand it? Feeling your body break down around you."

"You get used to it," Dean says, and holds Castiel still while another spasm of pain shudders through him.

~

The next day, Castiel is human.

It's not as simple as that, of course. There was more blood. Screaming. The skin of Castiel's vessel – his body – was never broken, not once. The blood just oozed out of flesh that was completely whole, and no bandage in the world could have stopped it. But, eventually, it ended. The bleeding slowed. Castiel fell asleep.

He doesn't sleep for long, though. He manages a few hours, enough to carry him into the next day, and then he sits bolt upright, knocking Dean's hands aside. He's breathing hard, and he doesn't even blink when Dean waves a hand in front of his face.

"Cas," Dean says. No response. "_Cas!_"

Shouting finally gets him a slow shake of the head, and Castiel looks at him, uncomprehending.

"What happened?"

Dean shrugs. Castiel's coat and shirt were soaked through with blood, and the smell is beginning to become an issue. Sam and Bobby will let them out soon, but until then Dean has to be nauseous, and Cas has to be shirtless.

"Maybe you had a nightmare?" Dean suggests, and Castiel opens his mouth, then closes it.

"A nightmare," he repeats after a moment. Dean shrugs – he's an authority on nightmares, sure, but Cas is utterly foreign territory. Dean doesn't even know if angels…you know, _slept_. Let alone what it might be like in the psyche of a Fallen angel.

"Try and go back to sleep," Dean says. "I'll wake you up later"

Castiel gingerly stretches out again, and Dean doesn't even mind that Cas ends up using his lap as a pillow again. The guy's been through a hell of a lot. And it's…nice. It's close.

Cas closes his eyes, but he doesn't go back to sleep. He just lies there, unmoving, until Sam comes to let them out.

~

Castiel has to be taught things. Things that any ordinary human would have learned as an infant. Things like how to tell when he's hungry, when he's tired, how to use the shower and the toilet. Neither Sam nor Dean have any experience with children, which is what it feels like, or helpless adults, which it actually is. And the worst part is that Castiel _knows_ that these are things that come easily to almost everyone but him. Dean can see that he resents being treated like a toddler, but it's necessary. They don't know any other way to do it.

So Dean teaches Castiel how to tell when the milk has expired, how to read labels on cans and bottles, how to use the microwave. Bobby teaches him how to hold a gun properly. Sam teaches him how to wash himself, with a patience that makes Dean think his little brother would make a _wonderful_ father. They all try to help. Dean even offers to let Castiel share his bed – it's partly selfish, the desire to have a warm body next to him for the first time in months, but it's mostly just wanting Castiel to be as comfortable as possible. You don't have a guy throw away his life for you and then not treat him with respect and gratitude afterwards.

But Castiel refuses. He doesn't use Dean's bed, and he sure as hell doesn't use Sam's bed. He just sits on Bobby's couch, all night long, and reads. It's the one thing that he says he enjoyed about taking a human vessel. Being able to read.

~

Eventually, they have to leave Bobby's. There's still an Apocalypse happening, and they can't afford to sit around and wait for Lucifer to show up on their doorstep. They need to find the last two Horsemen, need to get their rings in order to _end_ this whole mess.

Castiel comes with them. He doesn't give them a choice, just climbs into the back seat of the Impala and then refuses to move.

"I am aware of the risks," he says, and that's all they can get out of him. Dean gives in easier than he should, considering that Cas is both newly human and has no way to defend himself. He doesn't have the years of training that John Winchester gave his sons…in fact, Castiel has only rudimentary knowledge of how to handle a gun.

"Give me a sword," is what he says, when they bring up their concerns. "I can fight."

He has dark circles under his eyes, and he looks like a stiff breeze might knock him over. But Dean lets it slide for now.

~

Dean knows better than most about not wanting to sleep. About dreading it, rather than looking forward to it. He knows all about being terrified to close your eyes at night, because the world that your dreaming mind makes for you is a thousand times worse than the world you're actually living in.

This is the first time he's ever seen it happening to someone else, though.

Castiel doesn't sleep. Sam makes the mistake of telling him about energy drinks and NoDoz, the standard Winchester Cure for Nightmares, and all of a sudden they're buying in bulk. Castiel mainlines caffeine like he needs it to survive, and shit, maybe whatever it is he's trying to avoid _is_ that bad.

But Dean doubts it. Speaking as a guy who survived forty years in Hell, Dean sincerely fucking doubts it.

~

"Are you planning on sleeping at any point, or just…drowning yourself in Red Bull?"

Castiel stares at him. There are two empty cans of Red Bull on the nightstand. Sam is asleep in the other bed, and Castiel is sitting, legs crossed, on the floors. He's bizarrely flexible – Dean never would have guessed it, the way he used to carry himself. Back when he was an angel.

Without the trench coat, he looks tiny. Fragile. His wrists are thin as bird bones. Castiel defiantly opens another can, and then takes a long drink. Dean watches his throat as he swallows. He's this long expanse of pale, delicate skin, and Dean realizes abruptly that, for the past few months, he's been sleeping alone. Obviously it's affecting his judgement, and he turns away from Cas, clearing his throat.

"Fine. Be that way." Dean turns over onto his side, pressing his face into the pillow.

He hears Castiel open the bottle of NoDoz, but he doesn't look up.

~

"You have to talk to him." Sam stares earnestly at Dean over his grilled chicken salad, hair flopping over his cheekbones. He needs to get it cut; it looks like it's about five seconds away from just pulling itself free of Sam's head and crawling off on its own. Neither of them has been paying too much attention to their looks, but what Sam's got going on is just ridiculous.

"And you have to cut your damn hair," Dean says, but he's uncomfortably aware of the fact that Sam is right.

Outside, Castiel sits in the back seat of the Impala, dozing without wanting to, the little bottle of caffeine pills clutched tightly in one fist.

~

Dean corners Castiel in Wyoming, in a Super 8 motel in Pinedale. They're running low on energy drinks, and Castiel is jittery and irritable. He's irritable a lot of the time, actually – without the bizarre serenity that his Grace had bestowed upon him, Cas has to deal with human emotions and sensations that are probably more than a little confusing to him. Dean doesn't mind when he snaps at them (although if it lasts much longer he thinks he might start) – it's the shaking hands and dark shadows under Castiel's eyes that worry him.

He tells Sam that it's his turn to go and get dinner, and Sam seems to understand. He takes the keys to the Impala and leaves while he still can.

Dean and Castiel are left alone.

"Cas," Dean says. Castiel glances at him, but doesn't say anything. "This has to stop."

"I do not understand."

"That's bullshit, and you know it."

Castiel crosses his arms over his chest – it only makes him look thinner – and then leans one shoulder against the wall. The bed isn't even five feet away from him, but he doesn't look at it. Not even once.

"It is not." Castiel purses his lips. He looks like a petulant child.

Dean really, really wants to punch him. Instead, he takes a deep breath, and then lets it all out in one huge rush. He looks at Castiel, really _looks_. He's shaking, okay – but why? Why isn't he sleeping? Nightmares? Dean has nightmares, even now, but they fade, after a while. Well, for most people, anyways. Maybe Castiel is different?

"Cas, why don't you want to go to sleep?"

Castiel's eyes skitter away. He stares at some fixed point over Dean's left shoulder.

"I don't know what you mean." His jaw is clenched. Dean's teeth hurt just looking at him. He takes a cautious step closer, and then another, until he's crowding Cas against the wall. Castiel looks like he would rather be somewhere – anywhere – else.

"Talk," Dean demands. "Sam isn't here. It's just me. And fuck knows I don't have the right to make fun of you for having nightmares."

"I do not have nightmares," Castiel protests. Dean stares at him. "I do not sleep."

"Yeah, dude, that's not how 'being human' works. You _have_ to sleep."

Castiel frowns at him. It's achingly similar to the confused, 'Dean I do not understand' frown that he used to wear, whenever Dean showed him something irrational and completely human. It makes something in Dean's chest twinge in sympathy.

"I do not want to," Castiel says. Ah. That's a little closer to the heart of the problem. Dean puts a hand on Castiel's shoulder, and is heartened when he doesn't immediately shake it off. Steering him towards the bed is a little bit harder, and Dean tugs with a little more force than he means to. Castiel falls back onto the bed, bouncing once, glaring all the while.

_Holy shit, his eyes are intense when he's angry._ Dean clears his throat, then drops down next to Castiel. Their hips touch.

"Talk," Dean says again, and then waits while Castiel stares down at his hands, and then at the wall, and basically anywhere that isn't Dean's face. "You don't want to go to sleep because…?"

Castiel sits there, in silence, for three minutes. Dean waits. He's patient. Some (Sam) would say that he's stubborn.

Castiel cracks first. He takes a breath, a soft hush of sound.

"I am worried that I will not…wake up."

Dean blinks. "Uh. Okay. Is there any…particular reason?"

Castiel only says one word.

"Raphael."

And Dean gets it.

"Oh," he says. Castiel looks at him, his eyes huge, luminous blue.

Ringed with dark circles. Tired.

Dean doesn't know what to say.

~

Dean doesn't know what to say, but two days later he knows exactly what to do. He's been thinking about it for a while (longer, perhaps, than he should have been), and he's starting to see that it's the only solution left. It had helped Sam, after all, when he was a kid.

And the only time Castiel's slept for longer than a half-hour was when he was lying on the cot with Dean in Bobby's panic room.

Despite what Sam might say to the contrary, Dean _is_ capable of making leaps of logic when he needs to. And Castiel is…well. Castiel is a friend. More than a friend. The guy who pulled Dean out of _Hell_. The least he can do is help him get to sleep.

"Okay, this is how it's going to work." Sam glances up from his laptop at Dean. Castiel looks up, and then just as quickly looks back down. Dean gestures towards one of the motel beds.

"Sam, you take the bed by the wall. Cas and I are taking the bed by the window."

"_What_?" Sam and Castiel exclaim at the same time. Sam's got that pinched, 'I can't believe you're my brother, oh my god what are you doing' look, but Castiel…

Cas just looks blank. Dean clears his throat, and then drops down onto the bed closest to the window.

"I'm going to go get something to drink," Sam says faintly. It's almost ten – Dean isn't sure what Sam plans on doing, because it only takes like two minutes to walk to the motel's vending machine and get a soda, and Sam isn't really a bar kind of guy. Maybe he'll just go hang out at some place that has free WiFi? Dean watches Sam close his laptop, and then neatly coil his power cord and hook it over one arm. He pauses by the door, and then says, "I'll be back…uh, soon. Ish."

"Have fun," Dean says mildly, as Sam steps out the door, letting it swing shut behind him.

Castiel hasn't moved. He cradles an unopened can of Red Bull in his lap, just…staring at it. Dean leans over the edge of the bed, grabbing Castiel's shoulder and tugging him.

"Come on." Castiel looks up at him, tired, bleary. "It's time to go to sleep, Cas."

"I do not want to sleep."

"I know," Dean says. He tries to sound as kind as possible as he hauls Castiel up by his shoulder, then drags him back onto the bed. It's like lying next to a plank of wood – Castiel might as well be made of steel, for all that he's willing to relax. "That's why I'm gonna stay here with you."

"I do not see how your company will help." He sounds peevish. Dean resists the urge to smack Castiel upside the head.

"It helps," Dean says firmly. He drags Castiel closer, and then says 'to hell with it' and winds one arm around the guy's waist, holding him. Dean didn't think it was possible, but Castiel stiffens _even more_.

"What are you doing?"

"Helping you get to sleep." Dean gives Castiel's waist a squeeze for good measure, and Castiel squirms. Dean isn't sure if it's discomfort, though, or shame.

"I do not need –"

"Bullshit," Dean says. "You need help. I'm offering it. You're _human_ now, Cas. You can't just…keep pretending that you aren't. Sooner or later you're gonna do something stupid and you'll get yourself _killed_, and I…" Dean closes his eyes. "I don't want to see that happen, okay? We've been through a lot. Together."

Jesus Christ, if he says anymore Dean thinks his balls might _actually_ crawl up into hid body in manly disgust, but Castiel is giving him this _look_. This confused, slightly hopeful look, and yet he _still_ seems like he's waiting to get punched in the teeth. Dean swallows. Even as tired as he is, as _human_ as he is, Castiel seems…ethereal. Way too delicate.

"You're family," he finishes. Castiel blinks at him. "We take care of family."

"I do not understand."

Dean snorts. "You will. Don't worry."

Slowly, so slowly that Dean barely notices it as it's happening, Castiel relaxes. His limbs fall slack against the bed, and his waist is smooth and soft under Dean's arm. He doesn't close his eyes or anything, but Dean supposes that getting Cas to lie down in the first place is a good start.

"Close your eyes," he says. Castiel's chest rises, falls, rises. Dean reaches up to touch the curve of his jaw – he needs to shave, and he murmurs quietly when Dean's thumb brushes against his bottom lip.

"I'm right here," Dean whispers. "I'm not leaving. Promise." Cas stares, and Dean…

Dean thinks about kissing him.

He closes his eyes, and he hears, rather than sees, Castiel's breathing slowly even out.


End file.
